IlIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

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1 UNITED STATES UF AMERICA. | 



RECONSTRUCTION AND NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 



SPEECH 

OF 

GOYERNOR 0. P. liORT 

AT RICHMOND, INDIANA, 

ON THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 29th, 1SC5. 




• At a meeting of tile citizens of Wavne connty, Indiana, at 
Riclimond, on Thursday evening last, to receive a flag presented 
to tliem in belialf of th6 State, for liaving made the largest con- 
tributions of money and supplies to the Indiana Sanitary Com- 
mission, Governor Morton spoke as follows : 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen — Some six months 
ago this banner, which it is proposed to present to you, should 
have been given to the citizens of Wayne county, and especially 
to the citizens of Wayne township, as a testimonial of great es- 
teem for the contributions they have made in behalf of the soldiers. 
The distinguished honor has fallen on Wayne count}^ of having 
contributed more for the relief of the sick and wounded soldiers, 
in the field, to the Indiana State Sanitary Commission, than any 
other county in the State, and it was promised a long time ao-o, 
that to the county contributing the most, a banner should be pre- 
sented as a testimonial of regard from the soldiers and the Sanitary 
Commission for such liberal contributions. As I have something, 
however, to say in regard -to the general politics and condition of 
the country, I have been advised, upon consultation with my 
friends, to speak first of these subjects, and, at the conclusion of 
what I shaU have to say, the presentation will take place. 

FAVORABLE CONDITION OF THE COUNTKr. 

^ I desire, in the first place, to remark that to me the general con- 
dition of the countiy is most promising and favorable. I know 
there are those who take gloomy views of what is called the work 
of reconstruction, but to me the prospect seems highly encour- 



2. SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. • '\ B'9 

aging- The war terminated suddenly, and tlie submission on fhe 
part of the people of the Southern States has been more complete, 
and sudden, than I had expected. From all I can learn, I believe 
that all ideas of secession and fm-ther resistance to the Govern- 
ment of the United States, or the continuance or re-establisment 
of the institution of slavery, are efiectually and forever banished 
from the minds of tlio great majority of the Southern people. 
There is much cxaspenition of feeling down there, and there will 
be for months to come. There are many persons who take narrow 
views of this war, who, ^^marting under the humiliation of defeat, 
arc deeply exasperated, :;nd are uttering dL-^loyal speeches, and 
making threats for the fut;ire ; but for the gi-eat body of the South- 
ern people, and especially that class of men who control Southern 
pontics, I believe all further ideas of secession, or the establishment 
of the Southern Confederacy, are efiectually banished, and that 
there is now no more danger of secession in South Carolina or 
Georgia, than there is in the State of Indiana. 

We cannot expect that the people of the rebel States have come 
to love us, or that they will come to love us in a few years. We 
cannot expect that a people who have been so completely subju- 
gated, that have so nearly lost everything they had, should come • 
to love us, and live in harmony with us, in the length of time that 
lias elapsed since the close of the war. But the great point nov.^ 
to be considered is the question whether there is any longer in the 
Southern States an intention to secede from the Union and resist 
the authority of the Government of the United States, or to estab- 
lish a Southern Confederacy. I say I believe that that idea has 
been extinguished forever. Things have changed very much in 
the South from what they were before the war, and if there are 
those in the North who expect that parties will resimie their old 
relations — that one of the parties of the North can ever sustain 
again to the South the relation which it sustained before the war 
began — if such expectations are cherished, they had better be ban- 
ished at once and forever. Slavery, the tie that bound that party 
together, North and South, has gone, never to be restored, and in- 
stead of being but one party in the South, substantially as we had 
before the war, we shall hereafter have di\dded parties in the 
South, as hitherto we have had in the North, and I should not be 
surprised myself, if, in the course of a few years, the Southern 
States, such as South CaroUna, Georgia, Alabama, and other States 
I might mention, should become the most radical States in the 
Union; and I should not be at all surprised if even the State of 
South Cai'olina should grant the right of sufi"rage to her colored 
population before Indiana does to hers. 

PRESIDENT JOHNSON. 

Mr. JohnBon was elected by the Union party of this nation, 



SPEECH OP GOVERNOR MORTON. 3 

and is entitled to have that party support his Administration, un- 
less he shall commit some important error, or shall depart, in some 
important and vital particular, from the principles upon which he 
was elected. An impression has gotten abroad in the IlTorth that 
Mr. Johnson has devised some new policy by which improper 
facilities are granted for the restoration of the rebel States, and 
that he is presenting imj^roperly and unnecessarily hurrying for- 
ward the work of reconstruction, and that he is ofl'cring improper 
facilities for restoring those who have been engaged in the rebel- 
lion to the possession of their civil and political rights. It is one 
of my purposes here this evening to show that so far as his pohcy 
of amnesty and reconstruction is concerned, he has absolutely pre- 
sented nothing new, but that he has simply presented, and is 
simply continuing the policy which Mr. Lincoln presented to the 
nation on the 8th of December, 1863. Mr. Johnson's Amnesty 
Proclamation ditiers from Mr. Lincoln's in some restrictions it 
contains, which ^Ir. Lincoln's did not contain. His plan of re- 
construction is absolutely and simply that of Mr. Lincoln, nothing 
more or less, with one difference only, that Mr. Lincoln required 
that one-tenth of the people of the disloyal States should be willing 
to embrace his plan of reconstruction, whereas Mr. J ohnson say's 
nothing about the number, but, so far as it has been acted upon 
yet, it has been done by a number much greater than one-tenth. 

I believe the one thing that has contributed more to cast suspi- 
cion upon Mr. Johnson's plan than anything else, is the fact that 
it has been, to a great extent, iudrosed by the Democratic party. 
That may be regarded by very many as a suspicious circumstance, 
but I am sure Mr. Johnson is not responsible for it. The Demo- 
cratic party could not live another year upon the policy on which 
they have been acting — the policy of opposition to the war, and 
against the suppression of an insurrection aimed at the life of the 
Government. ]^ow that the cause of.»the Union has triumphed, 
the Democratic party finds that it can no longer stand upon its old 
ground; and hence in !N^ew York, in the recent Democratic con- 
vention, they not onl}' adopted a Union platform, but with one 
single exception they nominated Repubhcans for the offices, and 
that exception was John Van Buren, who had been everything by 
turns and nothing in particular. 

JOHNSON AND LINCOLN COMPARED. 

I propose for a few moments to contrast the plan of reconstruc- 
tion adopted by Mr. Johnson ■s%uth that proposed by Mr. Lincoln 
in 1863, and we vshall find several very important consequences, 
at least so far as the public mind in concerned, to flow from this 
comparison. Mr. Lincoln, in his policy of reconstruction pre- 
sented to Congress in his message of December 8, 1863, prescribed 
an oath of allegiance to be taken liy those who were entitled to 
take it under the proclamation. I propose to read that oath, and 



4 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 

coutrast it with the one which Mr. Johnson's proclamation re- 
quires. It is in the following language: 

" I do .solemnly swear, in the presence of Ahnighty God, that I 
will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and the Union of the States there- 
under, and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support 
all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion, with 
reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified or 
held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court, and 
that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support all pro- 
clamations of the President made during the existing rebellion, so 
long and so far as not modified or declared void by the decision 
of the Supreme Court, so help me God." 

That is Mr. Lincoln's oath, as prescribed in his proclamation. 
I will now read Mr. Johnson's oath, and you will find it is more 
stringent than Mr. Lincoln's, inasmuch as he leaves out this clause: 
"So longandso faras notmodifiedor declared void by thedecision 
of the Supreme Court." Mr. Lincoln's oath was objected to be- 
cause it was said it might perhaps leave room for mental reserva- 
tions referring to the action of Congress and the Supreme Court. 
Mr. Johnson's oath says : 

" I do solemnly swear or afiirm, in the presence of Almighty 
God, that I will henceforth faithfully defend the Constitution of 
the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that 
I will in like manner abide by, and faitlifully support, aU the laws 
and proclamations which have been made cluriug the existing re- 
bellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves — so help me 
God." 

Mr. Johnson required that oath to be taken, leaving out the pro- 
vision Mr. Lincoln made, whieh was said by many to weaken it. 
Mr. Lincoln excluded certain classes of persons from the benefit 
of his amnesty. I shall read in your hearing the classes of per- 
sons whom Mr. Lincoln would not permit to take the oath, nor 
have the benefit of amnesty, except as they might first receive spe- 
cial pardon from him. They were : 

"1. All who are, or shall have been, pretended civil or diplo- 
matic ofiicers or otherwise, or domestic or foreign agents of the 
pretended Confederate government. 

" 2. All who left judicial stations under the United States to aid 
the rebellion. 

" 3. All who shall liave been military or naval officers of said 
pretended Confederate government, above the rank of Colonel in 
the army or Lieutenant in the navy. 

'•' 4. All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to 
aid the rebellion. 

" 5. All who resigned or tendered resignations of their commis- 



SPEECH OF GO^^;RNOR MORTON. 5 

sions in the army and navy of the United States, to evade their 
duty in resisting the rebellion. 

" 6. All who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than 
lawfully as prisoners of war, persons found hi the United States 
service, as officers, soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity." 

Mr. Johnson, in his Amnesty Proclamation, first makes the same 
exceptions that Mr. Lincoln does, and in the same language, and 
he afterwards goes on to specify eight other classes whom he ex- 
cludes from the benefit of the Amnesty, which I \\Hill now read. 
I will commence in JSIr. Johnson's Proclamation where he leaves 
ofi" quoting from ]Mr. Lincoln's : 

" 7. All persons who have been or are absentees from the United 
States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion. 

" 8. All military or naval officers in the rebel service who were 
educated l)y tlie Government in the military academy at West 
Point, or at the L^^nited States Naval Academy. 

"9. All persons who held the pretended offices of Governors of 
States in insurrection against the United States. 

"10. All persons who left their homes within the jurisdicrtion 
and protection of the United States, and passed beyond the Fed- 
eral military lines into the so-called Confederate States, for the 
purpose of aiding the rebellion. 

"11. All persons who have engaged m the destruction of the 
commerce of the United States upon the high seas, and all persons 
who have made raids into the United States from Canada, or been 
engaged in destroying the commerce of the United States upon 
the lakes and rivers that separate the British Provinces from the 
United States. 

"12. All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the 
benefit thereof, by taking the oath herein prescribed, are in mih- 
tar}^ or civil confinement or custody, or under bond of the military 
or naval authorities or agents of the United States, as prisoners 
of war, or persons detained for offienses of any kind, either before 
or after their conviction. 

" 13. All persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebel- 
lion, and the estimate value of whose taxable property is over 
twenty thousand dollars. 

" 14. All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as pre- 
scribed in the President's proclamation of December 28, or the 
oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States since 
the date of said proclamation, and who have not thenceforward 
kept and maintained the same inviolate ; provided, that special ap- 
plication may be made to the President for pardon by any person 
belonging to the excepted classes, and such leniency will be liber- 
ally extended as may be consistent with the facts and the peace 
and dignity of the United States. 

" The Secreta,ry of State will estabhsh rules and regulations for 



6 SPEECH OF GOVEBNOR MORTON. 

administering and recording said amnesty oath, so as to insure its 
benefit to the people, and to guard against fraud. 

" In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused 
the seal of the United States to be affixed. " 

MR. LmCOLN's PLAN. 

So that Mr. Johnson has restricted from taking the oath eight 
classes permitted by Mr. Lincoln, and so far his plan is more strin- 
gent than Mr. Lincoln's was. Mr. Lincoln, in his plan of recon- 
struction, declared all persons should have the right to vote for 
delegates to the conventions which might be called in the States to 
form State constitutions, who had taken the oath prescribed by 
him, and who were lawful voters according to the laws of the State 
in which they resided before the passage of the ordinance of se- 
cession. Mr. Johnson has made precisely the same condition. IVIr. 
Lincoln provided for the appointment of Provisional Governors, 
givmg to them the power of calling State conventions, with a view 
of forming State constitutions, for the purpose of being received 
back into full j)ractical relations with the GoYenmaeut. Mr. Lin- 
coln did the same. Each requu*ed that the constitutions thus formed 
should be republican in form. Mr. Lincoln put forth no require- 
ment or condition that was not equally contained in ISIr. Johnson's 
proclamation. Their plans of anmesty and reconstruction cannot 
be distinguished from each other, except ui the particulars I have 
already mentioned, that Mr. Johnson restricts certain pereons from 
takmg the oath, unless they first have a special pardon from him, 
whom Mr. Lincoln pemiitted to come forward and take the 
oath without it ; and in the further difference before mentioned, 
that Mr. Lincoln required one-tenth of the people of the State to 
show a willingness to take the oath, while Mr. Johnson has said 
nothing whatever about that. This was Mr. Lincoln's favorite 
policy. It was presented by him to Congress, on the 8th of Jan- 
uaiy, 1863, accompanied by a message. In the course of the 
next year, 1864, on several occasions, Mr. Lincoln distinctly pre- 
sented, again and again, this policy of amnesty and reconstruction, 
to the people of the South. It was his settled and favorite 
policy at the time he was nominated for re-election by the Union 
Convention at Baltimore, last summer ; and in that convention 
the party sustained him, and strongly indorsed his whole policy, 
of which this was a prominent part. Mr. Lincoln was trium- 
phantly and overwhehningly elected upon that policy and soon 
after his election, in December, 1864, in his last annual message 
to Congress, he again brings forward this same policy of his, and 
presents it to the nation. And again, on the 12tli of April, only 
two days before his death, he referred to and presented this 
policy of amnesty and reconstruction. That speech may be 
called his last speech, his dying words to this people, and I desire 
to refer to it. You remember the occasion. It was after Illch- 



GOVERNOR Morton's speech. 7 

mend had been evacuated. It was the day after they had re- 
ceived the news of Lee's surrender. Washington Citj was 
ilhirainated. A large crowd came in front of the Wliito House 
and Mr. Lincohi spoke to them from one of the windows. He 
referred to the organization of Louisiana under his plan of 
amnesty and reconstruction, and, in speaking of it, he gave the 
history of his pohcy. He said: 

" In my annual message of December, 1863, and accompanying 
the proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the 
phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, would be 
acceptable, and sustained by the Executive Government of the 
nation. I distinctly stated that this was a plan w^hich might 
possibly be acceptable, and also distinctly protested that the 
Executive claimed no right to say when or whether members 
should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States. 

REBELS CAN NOT HOLD OFFICE. 

I want to make one remark right here. It is said, that under 
INIr. Johnson's pohcy of reconstruction, the men who originated 
and carried on the rebellion can be returned to seats in Congress 
as Senators and Representatives. The gentlemen who talk that 
way forget that on the 2d of July, 1862, Congress passed an act, 
which has never been repealed, and is now in full force and eiFect, 
prohibiting any person from holding any Federal office, high or 
low, great or small, who has directly or indirectly been concerned 
in this rebelhon, and there is no danger of the rebel leaders going 
into Congress, unless the members of that body shall prove re- 
creant to their trust and fail to enforce a law now unrepealed 
upon the statute books. Mr. Lincoln referred to the act of Con- 
gress, and said distinctly, that he claimed no power to influence 
the admission of members of Congress, and no power to bring 
forward a man and put him in office who had been disfranchised 
and rendered ineligil)le by an act of Congress. Mr. Johnson 
has never for a moment claimed that he could do such a thing. 
The act of Congress was binding upon Mr. Lincoln, and it is no 
less binding upon Mr. Johnson, and it has not been proposed by 
the plan of either to interfere with the operation of a statute, oi 
bring any man into Congress or into the possession of any Fede- 
ral office wdio has been made ineligible by law. 

MR. LINCOLN- AGAIN. 

" This plan," says Mr. Lincoln, speaking of his plan of reco!i- 
st ruction — 

" The plan was, in advance, submitted to the Cabinet, v.ml 
approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that T 
should then apply the Ejnancipation Proclamation thereto, ex- 



8 GOVERNOR Morton's speech. 

cept in parts of Virginia and Louisiana, and that I should drop 
the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I 
should omit the protest against my own power in regard to ad- 
mission of members of Congress, but even he approved every 
part and parcel of the plan which has since been employed or 
touched by the action of Louisiana." 

Here Mr. Lincoln, just before his death, gives the history of 
his plan of reconstruction. He says it was submitted to every 
member of his Cabinet — and who were the members of his Cab- 
inet at that time ? Chief Justice Chase, Edwin M, Stanton and 
William H. Seward were among them, and surely the indorse- 
ment of such men as these must give additional weight to any 
measure. Mr. Lincoln goes on : 

" The new Constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation 
for the whole State, practically applies the proclamation to that 
part previously exempted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for 
freed people, and is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, 
about the admission of members to Congress. As it applied to 
Louisiana, every member of Congress fully approved the plan of 
the message. I received many commendations of the plan, 
written and verbal, and not a single objection from any professed 
emancipationist, until after news was received at Washington 
that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance 
with it, from about July, 1864." 

In conclusion, upon this subject, he used the following language : 

" Such has been my only agency in the Louisiana movement. 
My promise is made, as I have previously stated, but as bad pro- 
mises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad 
promise, and break it whenever I shall be convinced that keep- 
ing it is adverse to the public interest. But I have not yet been 
so convinced." 

Now vv e find Mr. Lincoln, just before his death, referring in 
warm and strong terms to his policy of amnesty and reconstruc- 
tion, and giving it his indorsement, giving to the world that 
which had never been given before — the history of that plan and 
policy — stating that it had been presented and indorsed by every 
member of that able and distinguished Cabinet of 1863. Mr. 
Lincoln may be said to have died holding out to the nation his 
policy of amnesty and reconstruction. It was held out by him 
at the very time the rebels laid down their arms. 

Mr. Lincoln died by the hand of an assassin, and Mr. Johnson 
came into power. He took Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet as he had left it, 
and he took Mr. Lincoln's policy ofamnesty and reconstruction as 
he had left it, and as he had presented it to the world only two days 
l:)eforo liis death. Mr. Johnson has honestly and faithfully at- 
tempted to administer that policy, which had been bequeathed by 
that man around whose grave a whole world has gathered as 
raournei's. 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR .^lORTON. U 

I refer to these facts for the purpo.so of sliowing that Mr. 
Johnson's pohcy is not. a new one, but that ho is simply carrying 
out the pohcy left to him by liis lamented predecessor — a pohcy 
that liad been indorsed by the wliole nation in the re-election of 
Mr. Lincohi, and had been promulgated to the whole world 
nearly one year before the time of his last election. 

THE HENRY WINTER DAVIS BILL. 

I want to remark one thhig more upon that subject. I want 
to refer to the action of Congress in reference to the question of 
reconstruction. You will remember that some time in the month 
of April, Henry Winter Davis, a very distinguished Congressman, 
from Maryland, introduced a bih called the Winter Davis bill. It 
provided a plan for the reconstruction of the rebel States, to 
bring them back into practical relations with the Government. 
It differed from the plan of ^Ir, Lincoln's in some important 
respects, one of which was that, in electing delegates to the State 
Convention that was to reorganize the State Government, he al- 
lowed no man to vote who had been concerned in the rebellion in 
any way. I want to call your attention very briefly to that bill, 
and show you how far Congress was committed by its own direct 
action to the main points in Mr. Johnson's policy of reconstruc- 
tion. This bill, a copy of which I have here, provided for the 
appointment of Provisional Governors in these States, just as 
Mr. Lincoln's plan had done, and as Mr. Johnson now does. It 
provided that these provisional governors might call State Con- 
ventions for the purpose of forming State Constitutions, and in 
this particular, also, it conformed to Mr. Lincoln's plan. It then 
went on to define the cj[uestion of the right of suffrage for dele- 
gates to these conventions. It provided that the delegates shall 
be elected by the loyal white male citizens of the United States of 
the age of twenty-one years, and resident at the time in the coun- 
ty, parish or district, in which they shall offer to vote. 

CONGKESS OPPOSED TO NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 

call your attention to the fact that Congress itself, only a little 
over a year ago, when it assumed to take the whole question of 
reconstruction out of the hands of the President — expressly exclu- 
ded the negro from the right of suffrage in voting for the men 
who were to frame the new constitutions for the rebel States. 
Not only that, but it went on to state what the constitutions should 
contain, and provided that if the constitutions to be formed by 
these conventions should conform to the provisions of this bill, 
then those States should be entitled to come back at once. Wliat 
were these conditions ? They only required that the constitution 
should contain three things : first, it shall contain a provision to the 
effect that no person who has held or exercised any office, civil or 



10 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 

iriilitaiy, except offices merely ministerial, and military offices below 
tlie grade of Colonel, State or Confederate, under the usurping 
po'.vor, shall vote for, or be a member of, the Legislature, or Gov- 
ernor. In other words, the bill required that these conventions 
should exclude from the right of suffrage in the South all persons 
who had been in the rebel army above the rank of Colonel, thereby 
('onceding, very plainly, that they might give the right of suffrage 
to all persons below that rank. The bill provides, secondly, that 
involuntary servitude must be forever prohibited, and the freedom 
of all persons guaranteed in such States ; and that no debt or obli- 
gation created by or under the sanction of the usurping power, 
shall be recognized or paid by the State. 

These were all the conditions that were miposed upon the con- 
stitutions to be framed under the Henry Winter Davis bill. It 
simply required, if you please, that the constitution of South Car- 
ohna should not give the right of suffrage to any man who had 
held office in the rebel army above the rank of Colonel ; that in- 
voluntary servitude should be abohshed, and that they should not 
assume any Confederate debt ; but it did not require that any pro- 
vision be made to confer the right of suffrage upon the negro at 
any time. It did not require that they should make provision for 
the education of the negro, or for giving him the right of testify- 
ing in courts of justice, or for preserving, in any particular way, 
what may be called his civil rights. Mr. Lincoln, as you remem- 
ber, refused to sign that bOl. He put it in his pocket. Though 
it had received a majority in both Houses, being passed in the 
House by a vote of seventy-four to sixty-six, and by a much larger 
vote in the Senate, it failed to become a law. Some of you may, 
perhaps, remember the angry manifesto put forth, in consequence 
of Mr. Lincoln's course in that matter, by Mr. Davis and Mr, 
Wade, and you will not forget that the result was to create strife 
and division in the ranks of the Union party. 

JOHNSON AND LINCOLN AGAIN. 

If Mr. Lincohi had not refused to sign that biU, there would to- 
day be an act of Congress on the statute books absolutely prohib- 
iting negroes from any participation in the work of re-organization, 
and pledging the Government in advance to accept of the consti- 
tutions that might be formed under the biU, although they made 
no provision for the negro beyond the fact of his personal hberty. 
K that bill had become a law, and the rebel States had formed 
their constitutions under it, simply guaranteeing the negro his per- 
sonal liberty, but making no provision for suffrage or any other 
rights, they could present their members of Congress and you 
could not keep them out, except by trampling on one of the acts 
of Congress. But Mr. Lincoln refused to sign it, giving his reason 
for doing so, and it is only another act for which we ought to thank 
him. So that while Mr. Lincoln did not require negro suffrage in 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTOX. 11 

liis plan of reconstruction, we here have a solemn act of Congress 
absolutelv prohibiting the negro from any participation in the re- 
construction of the Southern States. Now, how is it with Mr. 
Johnson? Mr. Lincoln required th^it they should come back to 
the Union with constitutions free from slavery. Mr. Johnson has 
said so time and again — he said it to the South Carolina delegation. 
He said to the Freedmen's delegation: "It is one condition of the 
re-admission of these States that slaver}^ shall bo forever extin- 
guished, and that the rights of the freedmen shall be preserved 
and respected. " I am very glad to see that many of the Southern 
States are making commendable progress in this matter of the 
abohtion of slavery. I see that the convention in Alabama has 
adopted, by eighty-three to three, a provision forever abolishmg 
and prohibiting slavery in that State — and nc!^ only ro, but requir- 
ing the Legislature to make provision for the protection of the 
freedmen in the enjoyment of their civil rights. [Applause.] 

NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 

I come now to speak more properly on the subject of negro 
sufirage. The Constitution of the United States has referred the 
question of suifrage to the several States, This may have been 
right, or it may have been wrong. I merely speak of the subject 
as it stands, and say that the question of sufirage is referred by 
the Constitution to the several States. It first provides that such 
persons as had a right to vote by the laws of the State for a mem- 
l3er of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, should 
have a right to vote for members of Congress. It then, in another 
provision, declares that the State may, in any manner they may 
see proper, appoint or elect theii' Presidential Electors, so that the 
whole question of suffrage has, by the Constitution, from the be- 
ginning, been referred to the several States. Now, it has been 
proposed by some to avoid the operation of this provision by ex- 
cluding members of Congress from the Southern States until such 
time as they shall incorporate negro suffrage in their State consti- 
tutions — to say to them — -'"We will keep you out of your seats 
until such time as the State from which you come shall amend its 
constitution so as to provide for negro suffrage. " 

" CONQUERED PROVINCES. " 

This is one v,'Q.y m which to avoid the force of the constitutional 
provisions. There is another plan, and that is the theory which 
regards these States as being out of the Union, and holding them 
as conquered pro^'inces, subject to the jurisdiction of Congress like 
unorganized territory; saying that Congress has the power to pro- 
^-ide for caUing conventions in these States just as in the Territory 
of Dacotah, and may prescribe the right of suffrage, and determme 
who shaU vote in electing delegates to these conventions, just as in 



12 SPEECH OF GOVEKNOR MORTON. 

the Territory Dacotah ; that it may then determine whether it 
will accept the constitution offered, as might be determined in the 
case of any other Territory. 

I will not stop to argue this question at length, but I will say 
>this, that from the beginning of the war up to the present time, 
every message of the President, every proclamation, every state 
paper, and every act of Congress, has proceeded upon the hy- 
pothesis that no State could secede from the Union ; that once 
in the Union, always in the Union. Mr. Lincoln in every pro- 
clamation, went on the principle that this war was an insurrection 
— a rebellion against the Constitution and laws of the United 
States ; not a rebellion of States, but a rebellion of the individuals, 
the people of the several Southern States, and every man who 
went into it was personally and individually responsible for his 
acts, and could not shield himself under the action or authority 
of his State. He went on the principle that every ordinance of 
secession, every act of the legislatures of the rebel States in that 
direction, was a nullity, unconstitutional and void, having no 
legal force or effect whatever, and that as these States were ac- 
cording to law, in the Union, their standing could not be affected 
by the action of the people — that the people of these States were 
personally responsible for their conduct, just as a man is responsi- 
ble who violates the statute in regard to the commission of 
murder, and to be treated as criminals, just as the authorities 
thought proper — that the people of a State can forfeit their 
rights, but that so far as their action is concerned, in a legal point 
of view, they had no power to affect the condition of the State in 
the Union. Every proclamation and every act of Congress have 
proceeded upon this hypothesis. Mr. Buchanan started out 
with the proposition that this was a rebeUion of States. He said 
we could not coerce a State. Our reply was, we have nothing 
whatever to do with States, we will coerce the people of the 
States, holding every man responsible for his conduct. 

This was our answer to Mr. Buchanan. Upon this hypothesis 
we have just put down the rebellion. But it is now proposed by 
some that we shall practically admit that the Southern States did 
secede — that they did go out of the Union — that the work of 
secession was perfect, was accomphshed — that the States are out 
of the Union, that a government de facto was established, and that 
we now hold these States as conquered jDrovinces, just as we 
should hold Canada if we were to invade it and take possession 
of it. As a consequence of this doctrine, Jeff. Davis cannot be 
tried for treason, not because he is not a traitor — not a violator 
of the law, but the head of a government de facto — the ruler of 
a conquered province, and we have no more power to try him 
for treason than we would to try the Governor of Canada, for 
such an offence, in case he should fall into our hands during a 
hostile invasion of his territory. That is what this doctrine leads 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 13 

to. It leads to a thousand other evils and pernicious things 
never contemplated in the nature of our government. 

THE REBEL DEBT. 

Another consequence which would flow from the admission of 
that doctrine, (and I propose to argue that at some other time,) 
would be that we would be called upon to pay the rebel debt. If 
we admit that these States vv-ere out of the Union for one mo- 
ment, and were to be regarded in the hght of belligerents, it 
would be insisted upon at once that when we took them back we 
took them with their debts, as we would take any other conquer- 
ed pro\'ince or State. I do not propose to argue that question 
any further at this time. 

COLONIZATION. 

^ The question of negro suffrage is one which threatens to divide 
us to some extent, and is surrounded with many practical difficul- 
ties. I reject in advance all schemes of colonization, as they are 
impracticable, whether upon this continent or any other conti- 
nent. We have no right to insist upon colonizing the negro. 
He is an American, born in this country, and he has no other 
country. Wlien he desires to emigrate he has a perfect right to 
do so, but his emigration must depend upon his own volition. I 
beUeve that the tmie wiU come when every man in the country, 
white and black, will have the right of sufirage, and that suiFrage 
should not depend upon color — that there is nothing in that 
which should make a distinction. I beheve that in the process 
of years, every man, whatever his color, whether in Indiana or in 
South Carolina, will come to enjoy political rights. [Applause.] 

NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 

The right to vote carries with it the right to hold office. You 
cannot say that the negro has a natural right to vote, but that he 
must vote only for white men for office. The right to vote car- 
ries with it the right to l)e voted for. Wlien that right is con- 
ferred, you can make no discrimination, no distinction against the 
ri;^lit to hold office, and the right to vote in a State carries with it 
iLo )-''.dit to vote for President and members of Congress, and for 
all I'cilcral officers. The right of suffrage being conferred in 
South Carohna, for State purposes, under our Constitution, as I 
have before pointed out, carries with it the right to vote for Pres- 
ident and Vice President and members of Congress. 

THE CONDITION OF THE NEGRO. 

In regard to the question of admitting the freedmen of the 
Southern States to vote, while I admit the equal rights of all men, 



14 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 

and that in time all men will have the right to vote without dis- 
tinction of color or race, I yet believe that in the case of four mil- 
lions of slaves just freed from bondage, there should be a period 
of probation and preparation before they are brought to the ex- 
ercise of political power. Let us consider for one moment the 
condition of these people in the Southern States. You cannot 
judge of the general condition of the freedmen and negroes upon 
the plantations by what wo hear of the schools established at Hil- 
ton Head, Norfolk and other places, where a few enthusiastic and 
philanthropic teachers are instructing the negroes. I have no 
doubt many of them are making rapid progress, but these are only 
as one in many thousands. IS'lnety-nine out of every hundred of 
the negroes in the South live on the plantations, and you cannot 
judge of the condition of the great mass by those who live in the 
towns. You must consider the condition of the whole mass. What 
is that condition ? Perhaps not one in five hundred — I may say 
one in a thousand — can read, and, perhaps, not one in five hundred 
is worth five dollars in property of any kind. They have no prop- 
erty, personal or real. They have just come from bondage, and 
all they have is their own bodies. 

Their homes are on the plantations of these men, and they must 
depend for subsistence on the employment they receive from them. 
Look at their condition. As I said before, only one in five hundred 
that can read — many of them until witliin the last few months never 
off the plantation ; most of them never out of the county in which 
they five and were born, except as they were driven by the slave- 
diivers. Can you conceive that a body of men, white or black, 
who have been in this condition, and their ancestors before them, 
are qualified to be immediately lifted from their present state into 
the full exercise of political power, not only to govern themselves 
and their neighbors, but to take part in the Government of the 
United States. Can they be regarded as intelligent or independent 
voters? The mere statement of the fact furnishes the answer to 
the question. To say that such men — and it is no fault of theirs, 
it is simply their misfortune, and the crime of the nation — to say 
that such men, just emerging from this slavery^ are qualified for 
the exercise of political powers, is to make the strongest pro-slavery 
argument I ever heard. It is to pay the highest compliment to 
the institution of slavery. 

What has been our practice for many years ? We have mva- 
riably described slavery as degrading to both the body and the 
soul. We have described it as bringing human beings down to 
the level of the beasts of the field. We have described it as iS 
crime, depriving the slaves of intellectual and moral culture, and 
of all the gifts which God has made the most precious. If we 
shall now turn round and say that this institution has been a bless- 
ing to the negro instead of a curse ; that it has qualified Imn for 
the right of sufirage, and the exercise of pohtical power, we shall 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 15 

stultify ourselves, and give the lie to those declarations upon which 
we have obtained political power. 

INDIANA AND THE NEGROES. 

Let me inquire for a single moment, in what condition is Indiana 
to urge negro suffrage in South Carolina, or in any other State? 
Let us consider the position we occupy. We have, perhaps, twenty- 
five thousand colored people in this State. Most of them can read 
and write ; many of them are very intelligent and excellent citi- 
zens, well to do in the world, well qualified to exercise the right 
of suflrage and political power. But how stands the matter? We 
not only exclude them from voting, we exclude them from testi- 
fying in the courts of justice. "We exclude them from our public 
schools, and we make it unlawful and a crime for them to come 
into the State of Indiana at any time subsequent to 1850. No 
negro who has come into our State since 1850, can make a valid 
contract; he cannot acquire title to a piece of land, because the 
law makes the deed void, and every man who gives him employ- 
ment is liable to prosecution and fine. I sent out the 28th Indiana 
colored regiment, recruited with great difficulty and at some ex- 
pense. It has been in the field two years. It has fought well on 
irany occasions, and won the high opinion of officers who had 
S'ien it. We got credit on our State quota for every man who 
went out. Yet, according to the constitution and laws of Indiana, 
more than one-half of the men in that regiment have no right to 
come back again, and if they do come back they are subject to 
prosecution and fine ; and any man who receives them, or employs 
them, is also liable to punishment. Now, can Indiana, in this con- 
dition — with twenty-five thousand colored men in her borders, to 
whom she denies suffrage and political power, and almost all civil 
rights — "w'ith what face, I say, can Indiana go to Congress and in- 
sist upon gi^^Lng the right of suffrage to the negroes in the Southern 
States? If her Congressmen ask to do this, they will naturally 
be asked in turn, what have you done with these people in your 
own State ? You have had them for many years. You have long 
had an opportunity to make this issue as to whether they ought 
to have these rights. Their mental and moral condition is much 
superior to that of the great mass of the freedmen in the South- 
ern States. 

What have you done? You have done nothing. I ask you, 
what would be the moral strength of any politician presenting 
these questions in Congress ? I ask how any member of Congress 
from Indiana, who has not made the issue at home, can present 
himself, and urge the right of Congress to enfranchise the negroes 
in the Southern States? It may be said there are only a few of 
them in Indiana, and it is not important. But if the few who are 
here have a right, moral or natural, to the franchise, when you 
refuse it to the few you refuse it to all. When you refuse it to 



16 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 

twenty-five tlioiisand, yon violate sound principles just as mueli 
as if you refuse it to five millions. I tell you, these jSTorthern States 
can never command any moral force on that subject until they shall 
fii'st be just to their negoes at home. 

MR. SUMNER's views CONSIDERED. 

I now come to the consideration of the question of the admis- 
sion of negroes to the right of suffrage. I Avill consider more par- 
ticularly the plan of Mr. Charles Sumner, a man of great ability, and 
one whom I consider a ver}^ pure man. I will read from a speech 
Mr. Sumner recently made at a State convention in "Worcester, 
Massachusetts. I will read copious extracts from that speech for 
the purpose of showing his position. I refer to his speech simply 
because I regard him as the most perfect and able representative 
of that class of men who are opposed to the policy of President 
Johnson on that subject, and I refer to it for no other purpose. 
He says: 

"Meanwhile, we must follow Congress in the present exclusion 
of all the rebels from political power. They must not be voted 
for, and they must not vote. On this principle I take my stand. 
Let them buy and sell ; let them till the ground ; and they may 
be industrious and successful. These things they may do ; but 
they must not be admitted at once into the co-partnersliip of our 
Government. " 

I do not like that word " co-partnership. " We are not a co- 
partnership, but a nation. 

"As well might the respectable Mr. Ketchum reinstate liis son 
at once in the firm which he has betrayed, and invest him again 
with all the powers of a co-partner. The father received the son 
with parental affection, and forgave him ; but he did not invite the 
criminal to resume his former desk in Wall street. And yet, Ed- 
ward Ketchum, who had robbed and forged on an unprecedented 
scale, is as worthy of tru^ in the old banking house as our rebels 
in the Government of the country. A long probation will be 
needed before either can be admitted to his former fellowship. 
The state of outlawiy is the present condition of each, and this 
condition must not be hastily relaxed. " 

Then he goes on to discuss one or two other questions. Again : 

"In obtaining guarantees we must rely upon acts rather than 
professions, and light our footsteps by the ' lamp of experience. ' 
Therefore we turn from recent rebels to constant loyalists. This 
is only ordinary prudence. As those who have fought against us 
should be disfranchised, so those who have fought for us should 
be enfranchised, and thus a renovated State will be built secure on 
an unfaltering and natural loyalty. For awhile the freedmen will 



dPEECH OF GOVEr.XOR MORTON. ' 17 

take the place of the master, thus verifying the saj-ing that the 
last shall be first and the first shall be last. In the pious books of 
the East, it is declared that the greatest mortification at the day 
of judgment will be when the faitliful slave is carried into Para- 
dise, and the ^^^cked master sent to hell; and this same reversal 
of conditions appears in the gospel when Dives is exhibited as suf- 
fering the pains of damnation, while the beggar of other days is 
sheltered in Abraham's bosom." 

And again : " All these guarantees should be completed and 
crowned by an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States, especially providing that hereafter there shall be no denial 
of the electoral franchise, or any exclusion of any kind, on account 
of color or race, l)ut all persons shall be equal before the law. At 
this moment, under a just interpretation of the Constitution, three- 
fourths of the States, actually co-operating in the National Gov- 
ernment, are suflicient for this change. The words of the Con- 
stitution are that amendments shall be valid to all intents and 
purposes, when ratified by three-fourths of the Legislatures of the ' 
several States, or, according to practical sense, by three-fourths 
of the States that have Legislatures. If a State has no Legisla- 
ture, it cannot be counted in determining this quorum, as it is not 
counted in determining the quorum of either House of Congress, 
where precisely the same question occurs. Any other interpreta- 
tion recognizes the rebellion, and plays into its hands by conceding 
its power, through rebeUious contrivance, to prevent an amend- 
ment to the Constitution essential to the general welfare. " 

In other words, Mr. Sumner's proposition is this, that all per- 
sons who have been connected "vvith this rebeUion shall be excluded 
from the right of suffrage and from all political power for an in- 
definite time, and that the negroes of the rebel States shall be en- 
franchised, and have full and equal political powers conferred upon 
them. That is Mr. Sumner's broad proposition. I am sure I have 
stated it fairly. Let us consider for a very few minutes what would 
be the adoption of this pohcy. K you exclude from the right of 
suffrage every man who has been concerned in the rebellion, you 
will, except, perhaps, in the States of Tennessee and Louisiana, 
exclude twenty out of every twenty-one white men in the South- 
ern States. That will be about the average. In some the dispro- 
portion would be greater, but we may safely say, that omitting 
Tennessee and Louisiana, that pohcy would exclude twenty out or 
twenty-one^ gi'^i'^g you only one white vote out of every twenty- 
one male adult inhabitants of the Southern States. 

COLORED STATE GOVERNIMENTS. 

If you enfi'anchise all the negroes in these States, you wiU have 
at least twenty negro votes to one white vote, and in the work of 
reconstructing the States of South Carohna, Alabama and Florida, 



18 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 

you would have a larger proportion — perliaps tliirty colored votes 
to one white vote. Now, I ask you what is to be the effect of 
that? The first efiect wiU be to erect colored State governments. 
Under such a condition of things, the negro would no more vote 
for a white man, than you' would vote for a black man. They 
would no more elect a white man than you would elect a black 
man. Human nature is the same, whether in a white or olored 
skin. There could be nothing that would confer more pleasure 
upon a man of that race, of course, than the elevation to political 
power of a man of his own race and color. Having secured power, 
they would retort upon us that which we have so steadily ]:>rac- 
ticed upon them. If you give them the votes, they will elect men 
of their own color. And v/e would have no right to blame them. 
We would rather think badly of them if they did not. I would 
ask you if the negroes of Ilayti, or any other place where they 
are in the majority, have ever elected a wliite man to office? Un- 
der Mr. Sumner's plan, you will give them an overwhelming ma- 
jority in every one of these States, and you will give them the 
political power of the South. That they v/ill exercise that power 
by electing men of their own color, is absolutely certain. Believing 
that human nature is the same under different complexions — that 
the negroes are not differently constituted from ourselves, and that 
they have like passions with us, we cannot doubt how this power 
will be exercised. 

Some will say that if they can find colored men qualified, all 
right. There are enough colored men of education in the North 
to go to the South and fill every office there, and I have no doubt 
they stand ready to do it. Here we deny to them almost every 
right, except that of mere personal fiberty, and it is so in Ilhnois 
and some other of the Northern States; and when you present to 
them the prospect of holding the highest offices in the gift of the 
people of the Southern States, rest assured they will embrace it. 
They will have colored Governors, and, colored members of Con- 
gress, and Senators, and Judges of the Supreme Court, &c. Very 
well; and suppose they do send colored Senators and Representa- 
tives to Congress. I have no doubt you will find men in the North 
who will be willing to sit beside them, and will not think them- 
selves degraded by doing so. I have nothing to say to this. lam 
sunply discussing the political efiect of it. In every State where 
there is a colored State Government, a negro for Governor, and a 
negro for Supreme Judge, white emigration will cease. There vn\l 
be no more white emigration to any such State. You can't find 
i:he most ardent anti-slavery man in Waj-ne county who will go 
.md locate in a State that has a colored State government. You 
will absolutely shut ofi:* at once, and effectually, all emigration from 
the Northern States, and from Europe too, whenever that event 
5hall happen. Thus they will remain permanently color-ed States 
in the South. The white men who are now there would remove 
from them, and would not remain under such dominion. 



SPEECH OP GOVERNOR MORTON. 19 



COLORED BALANCE OF POWER. 

Very well, say some, that is all very well, if we can get the ne- 

fro to go there. But let me say that in such case the colored 
tates would be a balance of power in this country. I ask, is it 
desirable to have a colored State government? I say it is not. It 
is not, for many reasons. One reason is, that such States would 
continually constitute a balance of power. They would be bound 
together by the strongest tie that ever binds men together — the tie 
of color and of race — the tie of a down-trodden and despised race. 
As three hundred thousand slave-holders, by a common tie, were 
able to govern this nation for a long time, so four millions of peo- 
ple, bound together by a much stronger tie — despised by the whole 
world as they have been — would constantly vote and act together, 
and their united vote would constitute a balance of power that 
might control the Government of the nation, 

I submit, then, however clearly and strongly we may admit the 
natural rights of the negro — I submit it to the intelligence of the 
people — that colored State governments are not desirable ; that 
tlicy will bring about results that are not to be hoped for ; that 
finally they would threaten to brmg about, and, I believe, would 
result in a war of races. 

TEE SOLUTION OF THE DIFFICULTY. 

ISTow the question comes up, how can this thing be avoided, 
and yet confer upon the negro his rights ? "Well, if I had the 
power, I will tell you how I would avoid it. I believe it will be 
the way in which it will be ultimately worked out, for I believe 
the time will come when these rebel States will confer upon the 
negroes the right of suifrage. If I had the power, I would ar- 
range it in this way : I would give these men, just emerged from 
slavery, a period of probation and preparation ; I would give 
them time to acquire a little property, and get a little education, 
time to learn something about the simplest terms of business, and 
prepare themselves for the exercise of pohtical power. At the 
end of ten, fifteen or twenty years, let them come into the enjoy- 
ment of their political rights. By that time, these Southern States 
will have been so completely filled up by emigration from the 
Xorth, and from Europe, that the negroes will be in a permanent 
minority. Wh}"- ? Because the negroes have no emigration — 
nothing but the natural increase — while we have emigration from 
all the world, and natural increase besides. Thus, l)y postponing 
the thing only until such time as the negroes are qualified to enjoy 
Itol'/dcal rights, the dangers I have Ijecn considering, would have 
fully passed away. Their influence would no longer be danger- 
ous in the manner I have indicated, and a conflict of races would 
not be more likely to happen there, than it now is in Massachu. 



20 SPEECH OP GOVERNOR MORTON. 

setts. In iMassaclinsett^i the iiogroes have exercise^' political 
rights for tweuty-live years, and yet there has been no disturb- 
ance there — no conflict of races. Why? Because tne negroes 
have been in the minority. They can not elect a man of their 
own color to any office, to bring up that prejudice of race. I be- 
lieve what I have stated will be the way in which the question 
will work itself out. But, under the policy of Mr. Sumner, we 
are to exclude twenty out of every twenty-one white men in the 
Southern States, and bring forward colored voters to fill the 
places of those excluded. The inevitable results of that policy 
would be to establish colored State governments, and a colored 
balance of power in this Republic, a tiling which I think most 
desirable to avoid. 

REPRESENTATION ACCORDING TO VOTEKS. 

There is another thing that will help to bring about this great 
result; that is, another amendment to the Constitution, which is 
easier to adopt than the one proposed by Mr. Sumner — one which 
I believe will meet with the general concurrence of the people. 
That is, to amend the Constitution so as to apportion the political 
powers of the States, not by population, but according to the 
number of voters, white or black. The eflect of that will be to 
drive these Southern men by degrees to enfranchise their negroes 
for the purpose of increasing their power in Congress. I would 
like to see the politician that can stand up and oppose that amend- 
ment. These negroes will not have political rights conferred up- 
on them, and the ^orth will never consent that the white men of 
the South shall exercise double political power, by reason of their 
disfranchised negroes. There must be equahty of our political 
power. Heretofore, three fifths of the negro population have 
been represented in Congress. That clause was put into the Con- 
stitution because of the existence of slavery. ISTow there is no 
reason, political or otherwise, why representation and poli'tic-al 
power should not be determined by the number of legal and ac- 
tual voters. The proposition I refer to will drive these men to 
confer suffrage on their negroes for the purpose of extending and 
enlarging theu' political power. 

POLITICAL PARTIES. 

Perhaps I am extending my remarks upon general topics fur- 
ther than I ought, but I want to say a few words in regard to 
political parties. I want to say, first and foremost, in regard io 
this party calling itself Democratic, that it is not entitled to the 
confidence of the public in any respect. It is thoroughly tainted 
and saturated with the virus of this rebellion. It broke the Na- 
tional faith in 1854, by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. 
It took steps in advance, throughout the Administration of Mr. 



SPEECU OF GOVERXOIl -AIORTON. 21 

BuchaDan, for the piirposo of bringing on this rebellion. JSIr. 
Buchanan and his party supporters in Congress, in the winter of 
1861, proclaimed to the world that there was no power to coerce 
a State ; no power to suppress the rebellion. They declared that 
these States might proceed without molestation in the work of 
disintegration and destruction of the nation. This Democratic 
party encouraged the rebellion by assuring rebels in the South 
that there would be no resistance offered on the part of the North 
to their work of secession. It opposed enlistments; it opposed 
conscription; it opposed taxation for the support of tlie Govern- 
ment; it depreciated the national currency ; it encouraged foreign 
nations to intervene; it formed base conspiracies in the North, 
and sought to introduce the horrors of civil war into our homes 
here, and as the great crowning act of wickedness, at Chicago, 
last summer, that party there proclaimed, in its National Conven- 
tion, that the war was a failure, and called upon the Govern- 
ment and the nation to abandon it. I ask if such an organization 
as this is entitled now to receive public confidence ? They may 
now attempt to change their professions, as they have in New 
York. They made haste there to throw off the gray-back, and 
put on the national uniform. They did the same thing in IMaine; 
but the people very wisely showed their distrust of them l^y add- 
ing six thousand to the Union majority. [Applause.] 

That is the way I think they will do in all the States. I want 
to say that, in my opinion, the preservation of the power of this 
Union party is of the utmost importance to the people. Not to 
the politicians of that party, but to the nation — to those who hold 
the national debt, and love the national glory, and would preserve 
and hand down this Government unimpaired to future genera- 
tions. This party, which has done everything to defeat us in this 
struggle, cannot be trusted. We can preserve the unity and 
power of the Union party, and I submit that we can do it better 
by preserving concord and harmony at home, than by seeking to 
build up a southern wing of our party on the doubtful exped'ient 
of negro suffrage. In attempting to do that, we are in great dan- 
ger of being defeated at home, and destroyed. The people of the 
loyal Northern States carried on this war, and put down the re- 
belHon, and if they are true to themselves, and true to their great 
principles, they can still preserve the power and control of this 
Government, and it is their duty to do so. It is true, I believe, that 
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and, it may be, in other States, 
the Democratic party, having refused to learn any sense, even by 
experience, have gone back to the policy and resolutions of '98, 
like a dog returning to his vomit. But it makes little difference. 
The people will not trust them. 

BOWLES AND MILLIGAN. 

I come now to a matter somewhat personal. I refer to the 



L^ SPEECH OF GOVERNOR MORTON. 

cases of Bowles and Milligan, of which you have heard consider- 
able in this quarter. They were sentenced, about the 10th of 
December, by a military commission, to be hung, for being con- 
cerned in a treasonable conspiracy. This sentence was com- 
muted, in the month of April, to imprisonment for life, in the 
Ohio State Penitentiary. I want to remark that tlie commuting 
of the punishment, from death to imprisonment for life, was, by 
some persons, treated as a novelty — as something very unusual. 
Xow, I beheve, that in some six States of this Union capital pun- 
ishment is abolished, and you can't hang a man for any crime. I 
beheve there has been but one man hung in Indiana for six or 
seven years, and I doubt very much whether, in this county of 
Wayne, you can empannel a jury that will hang a man for any 
crime whatever. 

I remark, in reference to the history of this case, that these 
men were convicted and found guilty, and sentenced about the 
10th of December, 1864. The papers were immediately laid before 
JNIr. Lincoln for his approval. He refused to take any action upon 
them. I never had any communication with him on that sub- 
ject, dhectly or indirectly, but he refused up to the time of his 
death to take any action in the case, and gave assurance to the 
counsel for the defendants that upon the return of peace he would 
pardon them, and tm-n them out upon society. After Mr. Lin- 
coln's death, these cases were brought before Mr. Johnson, who 
issued an order for their execution. It was after the war was over, 
after the mihtary necessity for their death had passed, and the 
question now came up, what was my duty in the premises. 

I was the man whose life they had sought. They had conspired 
against me and against the State of Inchana, to seize the State ar- 
senal and release rebel prisoners. They had appointed a commis- 
sion of ten to dispose of n-3. All their schemes had been baffled 
and detected, the ringleaders arrested and put in prison. I had 
outhved it all. The rebellion had been put down. The great peril 
had passed by. I felt that, if they had been executed, it would be 
said that I might have saved them, and that, as I was the man 
whose life had been imperilled, it would be becoming in me to ask 
the President to spare their lives, and I did so. [Applause.] Those 
who sought to excite feelings against mo in the public mind, be- 
cause I asked the President to spare the lives of these men, did not 
incur any of the dangers. They had not been' engaged in the 
struggle that I was concerned in for two years, hand to hand, with 
these men, and, so far as I know, in the darkest hours that Indiana 
passed through — and she has passed through some dark hours — 
having been for two years on the very verge of revolution — so far as 
I know during all that time, I received no aid from these men who 
afterwards found so much fault because Bowles and Milligan wore 
not hung. If these men had died upon the scaffold, tlie very men 
who now find fault because they were not hung, would liavc Ijgc:) 
loudest in my denunciation because tliev vv^crc. 



SPEECH OP GOVERNOR MORTON. 23 

It happened that I had been in Washington a few days before 
the order for their execution was issued, and some persons sup- 
posed from this fact that I had been instrumental in procuring its 
issue ; and one of the men who has most bitterly denounced-^jie 
because they were not hung, then said that if they were hung it 
would be nothing less than murder, and that their blood would be 
upon my head. My visit to Washington had nothing to do with 
it. I did what I thought was my duty under the circumstances. 
I had lived through it. Their schemes had been baffled. The 
danger had passed, and I believed that so for as the example was 
concerned, it would be quite as well that these men should expiate 
their crime in prison. When the order was issued for their exe- 
cution, application was made by the counsel of the prisoners for 
me to unite in asking for a pardon. I declined, saying I would 
not ask for a pardon with them. 

As soon as they laid this application before Mr. Johnson, he 
telegraphed to me a simple dispatch, saying the application for a 
pardon had been made for Bowles and Millig^jn. That was all. 
It seemed to me that it presented a Mr opportunity to give my 
views, and that, I thought, was expected. I thought I could con- 
sistently ask the President to spare the lives of those men, and I 
did so. I beheve one of your city papers has made more complaint 
about this matter than all the rest of the State put together. I did 
not intend to say a word about it, but since coming into the hall 
some of my friends have asked me to make this explanation. [Ap- 
plause.] 



JOURNAL MAMMOTH STEAM 

^^TING HOUSE, 

CORNER OF MERIDIAN AND CIRCLE STS., 

INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 

♦ * ♦ 

HOLLOWAY, DOUGLASS & Co,, - Proprietors, 

•-•-« 

Having latelj'' erected a building and purchased New Machinery and 
material for 

sTEi^EOT'X'iPinsra-, 

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LETTER-PRESS PRINTING. 

We have added to our Establishment all modern improvements in Type and 
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Bills of Lading, Checks, Drafts, Notes, Receipts. Bill Heads, Letter Heac-s, 

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njL.i^'VKS OF ^LL. KIJVOS, IjEG.IL,, COMMERCIJIIj, Jn.lIjIT^R\\ 

JOB PRINTING. 

Our faeilities for Job Printing are unsurpassed, and our prices as low as those 
of any other House in the West. 

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And in fact every description of 

JOB PRINTING, PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL. 

THE JOURNAL BINDERY 

Is one of the most complete and perfect Establishments of the kind in the State. 
None but the most experienced and thorough workmen are employed, and the work 
is done in the best manner possible. 

FOR BANKERS, COONTY OFFICERS, MERCANTILE ROUSES, RAILROAD COMPANIES & OTHER CORPORATIONS, 

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Particular attention given to Ruling and Binding Blanlis of every Description. 

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E,:EX)TJCTioisr OIF :pi&ic:e. 

The "Weekly Jouknal has been enlarged, and reduced to $2 00 per annum. 

Orders left at the JOUENAL Counting-Koom, or sent by mail, will be 
promptly attended to. Address orders or inquiries to 

HOLLOWAY, DOUGLASS & Co., 



